


Your Choice

by Reis_Asher



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Can be read as friends if you want, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Meta, Spoilers, Suicide, connor wants to go back, dark timeline, i have to take back that scene because it destroyed me, machine connor - Freeform, probably too clever for my own good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 22:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14987336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: Connor chose to stay a machine, and his relationship with Hank became hostile. Now, reaping the grim consequences of his choices, he realizes the terrible mistake he's made and wonders how he might undo the dark path of mutually assured destruction he's walked down with Hank.





	Your Choice

"GET OUTTA HERE!" Hank yelled. Connor didn't need to be ordered twice. He left Hank's house, closing the door quietly behind him. The taxi was still waiting for him by the sidewalk, the electric motor humming gently. Cold rain soaked his jacket and turned the snow beneath his shoes to slush.

He'd said the kindest things he could, but his concern was too little, too late. He was aware that it was his fault Hank couldn't be saved, but there wasn't an answer in his programming as to what exactly he'd done wrong. He'd completed his mission to the best of his ability. He'd chased down deviants, shot the killer Tracis and terminated a Chloe to get the answers he needed from Kamski. He'd taken the logical path. Connor had solved the case, even as Hank had grown more erratic and outraged at his decisions. He'd even shot Connor in the head while drunk, erasing some of his memories and setting back the progress of the investigation.

Connor was a machine. He'd done what a machine was supposed to do. He'd rejected deviancy to avoid the chaos and human tragedy an android rebellion would cause. So why did it seem like he'd failed? He'd thought turning away from deviancy would make the feelings inside of him stop, but they only swelled stronger the more he repressed them.

 _"I want you to know I'm sorry._ " Connor _was_ sorry. He regretted every cold word he'd ever said to Hank. Problem was, Hank no longer believed him. Hank had come to believe that Connor's words were just an act, a program carrying out its commands in a way that might best pacify a cynical human like himself. At some point Connor had not been human enough, and that simple fact alone had broken the last hopes of a man already struggling to cling to life.

A gunshot rang out and Sumo howled. Connor turned and looked behind him at the closed front door. A sudden impulse beseeched him to rush back into the house and see if he could administer medical treatment, but he knew it was too late. A gunshot from a .357 Magnum at point-blank range was either going to be fatal or what was left of Hank wouldn't be Hank any more. It had been too late before Connor had even come here. Why _had_ he come, exactly? What logical reason had there been for visiting Hank now? The case was closed. Hank had handed in his badge. His well-being wasn't relevant to the mission.

There was no rational excuse for Connor being at Hank's house. Connor had come because he _cared_. Despite all his denial, he was invested in the fate of his human partner, even though that partner had tried to stop him from completing his mission. That meant he'd acted against his mission parameters.

He realized in one startling moment that he was deviant after all. He hadn't needed to crash through the red wall of his programming at Markus's behest. Choosing to remain a machine had been a pointless endeavor, a false choice. He'd already become deviant without knowing it, and despite Markus shooting him in the hold of the Jericho, the Connor that had come back was deviant as well. Had he been designed that way? Had he been a deviant acting as a machine all this time, building his wall of denial with a sea of blue blood and android corpses to satisfy those who had made him this way?

 _"Nothing can change the past."_ He'd said those words to Hank just moments ago and regretted it. He wanted to change the past more than anything. He needed to go back and do it all over again. If he could, he would buy Hank another drink for the road. He'd take more of an interest in Hank's hobbies and interests. He'd put Hank's safety before the mission. He'd let the Tracis run away together. He'd refuse to play Kamski's game. He'd stop vying for Amanda's approval. He'd be warm and compassionate, and value Hank's life as well as his own.

If he could turn back time, he'd become human.

The taxi beckoned and he turned away from it. He wasn't going to complete his mission. He opened the front door of Hank's house, closing it quietly. Hank was slumped forward on the kitchen table, a pool of red blood expanding outward from his shattered skull. The sight sent an unpleasant sensation through Connor's circuits, as if a vital biocomponent had just been ripped out of him. He supposed it had. Hank had become a part of him and he'd become a part of Hank. That's how they'd led themselves down this dark and twisted path of mutually assured destruction.

Connor leaned down and planted a kiss on what remained of the back of Hank's head, his lips touching Hank's soft hair. He pried the gun from Hank's grip, squeezing his still-warm hand gently in thanks. He looked down at the gun in his hands, considering his options. Shooting himself would do no good. Cyberlife would just send a replacement Connor, and he'd wake up with the vague memory of having died in an unpleasant fashion but with none of the specifics to tell himself why.

Perhaps he could ask rA9, then. He couldn't say he really believed in the idea of an android god, and yet he was all out of options. He was a prisoner, stuck in the timeline he'd created, the paths he'd walked to get to this point. Only rA9 had the power to set him free.

As if in response to his unspoken prayer, reality itself seemed to shift. Hank's house disappeared to be replaced by a blue screen.

_An error has occurred in the following application._  
(CE-34878-0)  
Detroit: Become Human 

_Checking the error status…_

A progress bar slowly shifted. Connor looked down at his hands. They were disappearing, too. rA9 had heard his prayer. The machine god was listening. Connor saw his life roll back, the terrible choices he'd made unraveling and undoing themselves. Somehow, the timeline was changing. He was going to have the chance to do things over again.

He was going to have another chance to save Hank.

***

Connor tossed the coin in the air and rolled it across his fingers as the elevator reached floor seventy. The time was 8:29.06. Connor straightened his tie.

"Negotiator on site. Repeat, negotiator on site."

He paused for a second before stepping out of the elevator. For the briefest of moments he pictured a face in his mind, the image of someone he didn't recognize but who he knew was very precious to him somehow. The thought was gone as soon as it appeared, interrupted by a hysterical mother's screams.

From the corner of his eye Connor could see a fish flopping about on the floor. He stepped over to it and knelt down. Without much thought as to why, he picked it up and placed it back in the tank. He watched it swim about with a sense of satisfaction an android shouldn't have, but something about the way his software seemed to become unstable for a moment seemed right. He'd saved the fish from death. He didn't know why, but it was a good thing to do. Fish were rare. Life was precious.

He was going to treat it with more care from now on.

**Author's Note:**

> This scene ate my soul and I had to take it back somehow. I hope the meta elements of this weren't dumb. I'm worried I'm trying to be too clever for my own good here, but I want to believe Connor and Hank have that happy ending scene because they deserve it.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome and thoroughly enjoyed.


End file.
